2015-12-15: Hi! You're probably here because you did a Google search for 'plus sized horseback riders' or you saw my content quoted elsewhere. There are a couple of things I'd like you to know.

I am still here! But I am living away from my horses and not riding often. I could tell you a lie and say that I am, but I have always endeavored to give you the truth here. As a result, I'm not feeling terribly motivated to write blog posts and I feel out of touch with the community.

I'd love for you to stay a while and look back through the archives. Visit the links listed below. We still have an active forum community and I post on the Facebook page from time to time.

I have tentative plans to try to get more involved in the horse world in 2016, and I will absolutely share whatever that adventure becomes with you, so keep checking back!

Monday, September 9, 2013

Product Review: Equine Aid

I am pretty fortunate to have at least one horse that is a good drinker. So good, in fact, that I tend to rarely actually see her drinking at home - she seems to have no qualms about water quality or flavour and is always hydrated. For those that don't have Bronwyns, meet EquineAid, a product that, per their website, has changed the old adage that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Make no mistakes, this is not marketed as an electrolyte (because it's not!), but as something to think of as "a horse cookie dissolved in water" - a tasty treat to encourage your horse to drink when it might not otherwise want to. There is no comprehensive ingredient list on the website but it does say this:

The ingredients in Equine Aid are all human grade--organic, non-GMO alfalfa, molasses, brown sugar, and pink Himalayan rock salt--and are consumed by horses on a regular basis without any adverse effects.

[Post entry note: The rep I have been working with informs me that what I've listed above is the comprehensive list of ingredients. Straight, simple, wholesome!]

Soooo... since it said it was human grade ingredients, before I offered it to my horses, I did what I usually do - I tasted it. I lived! It tasted a bit like black licorice, actually.

Overall, I found the presentation of the product - both the packaging and the product itself - to be neat, clean and professional - just the way I like most things.

The instructions for use on this one were obvious - mix with a bucket of water and offer to horse. I did find it didn't dissolve into the water as quickly as I would have liked but there were no adverse affects as a result of it - kind of when you put cocoa in milk or water - maybe mix or shake it into a small amount of water prior to mixing it into the larger bucket.

(I didn't taste the water after I mixed in the supplement, but I am sure it would have tasted good!)

The next step was to get my taste testers! They had been in the barn for a couple of hours so I thought it would be a prime opportunity to offer them a drink -- this is what I ended up with:

Bronwyn, who actively ignored it.

And Rex, who was interested, but not interested enough to drink. As I did this outside, I thought perhaps it was the "you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink" thing, so offered it inside, in their stalls... which was met with similar disinterest. They weren't interested in straight water, either - so it leads me to believe that it had nothing at all to do with the EquineAid in the water, and everything to do with that they just weren't thirsty.

I did, however, offer it to Serenity, who thought it was pretty snazzy:

To be fair - the website recommends that you feed it dry on top of their feed to get them used to the taste and in their water at home so they will drink it off property as well, which makes sense. I can't say for sure if things would be different if I offered again, but I do have other samples and plan to give them a shot when I have actually taken one of my kids out and worked them - so they ought to be thirsty.

My overall verdict? If you have a horse who is a picky drinker (and we all know them), EquineAid can be ordered for $1.99/pouch or $25 for 30, which, as someone who doesn't venture off property very frequently, I find to be pretty reasonable.

3 comments:

Posted a product review of this very same item today :) and my girl was totally opposite...drank the ENTIRE bucket of water and slupped it up to the point where I added more water just to get the crumbs off the sides LOL

I really don't think that my kids not drinking really had anything to do with their like or dislike for the product but more to do with the fact that they simply weren't thirsty. I had originally planned to trailer B out for a trail ride and then offer it to her and my friend's endurance horses post ride but I ended up not trailering her and just riding the friend's second horse, and completely forgot to bring the product. I thought it would be a good post workout pick-me-up!

Hate to be a party pooper (although you know I often am), but "horse cookie" in a pouch is pretty accurate, molasses and brown sugar? No horse needs a pouch full of sugar, none! Most are overweight enough as it is. Better idea is add loose salt to their dry feed and they will drink. Sorry to disagree, I think it's a bad product.